American director Julie Taymor won acclaim for her stage direction of
"The Lion King" on Broadway and in London, but this is something else
again. Titus is also a play she has directed for the stage and her
familiarity with the material is evident, as is her occasionally
theatrical style.

But this movie is wonderfully cinematic in other respects and benefits
from some mesmerising performances from a cast headed by Anthony
Hopkins. The Welsh actor has a famously ambivalent relationship with the
Bard, but is quite splendid as the revered Roman general trapped in a
cycle of violence and revenge, and unable to comprehend the changing
world around him.

Returning from his latest victory on the battlefield, he brings with him
prisoners including the Goth Queen Tamora (Lange) and sacrifices her
eldest son to appease the Gods. When Saturninus (Cumming) is chosen to
be the new Emperor, he takes the scheming Tamora as his bride and Titus
Andronicus (Hopkins) suddenly finds himself with a mortal enemy at the
highest reaches of power.

And so the blood letting begins, in a brutal carnival of slaughter and
petty senseless violence. Anyone criticising the gruesome blood-lust of
modern Hollywood might do well to ponder the body count in this play,
and while Taymor does not take any kind of fetishistic delight in these
scenes they are powerful nonetheless.

Audiences not overly familiar with Titus Andronicus may be surprised
and entertained by a grisly tale that seems as relevant now - Taymor
makes a definite allusion to contemporary conflicts in the prologue
sequence - and is just as telling a depiction of human weakness and
wickedness as it must have been when it was first written over four
hundred years ago.